Standing out amidst the growing competition in the eCommerce market requires more than just a great product. You need an impressive digital storefront and spot-on marketing efforts that can fetch you leads who get converted into paying customers.
Therefore, when setting up a storefront, it’s essential to optimize resources and focus on efforts that priortize the principles of revenue marketing. These principles focus efforts that directly impact revenue and push ROI. Usually, digital storefront marketers may limit their KPIs to visitors, but it is best to adopt a cohesive revenue marketing philosophy where the sales and marketing teams work together to achieve the goal of maximum conversion.
You can consider Google Analytics for standard reference to consider sales transactions at the digital storefront. Google defines an eCommerce conversion rate in percentage, measured based on the relationship between transactions and sessions.
For instance, if you get two transactions for every ten sessions, your conversion rate would be 20%.
For reference, eCommerce websites have a conversion rate of 1.84% – 3.71%, and Unbounce’s Conversion Benchmark Report suggests that catering & restaurant sites top with an average conversion rate of 9.8%. This means even 5 % of conversion would be a significant achievement for your digital storefront.
So, let’s scratch the surface and find out how you can set up your digital storefront with the intent to drive maximum conversions.
Ensure responsive design
Over half of the global website traffic came from mobile devices. Therefore, ensure your site looks and functions well on mobile or be prepared to lose out on many potential customers. Aim to offer users an intuitive storefront design that makes finding what they want easy.
There are a few things to do here.
Choose a responsive theme: Most modern website builders like Shopify, WordPress with WooCommerce, Wix, etc., offer responsive themes right out of the box. These themes ensure a seamless mobile viewing experience without many glitches.
Test on multiple devices: You’d need to regularly test your website on different screen sizes and devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops. This is to provide a native experience to audiences across the devices.
Avoid large files: Large media images can slow down your site, especially on mobile. Therefore, compress images and avoid unnecessarily large scripts that can spoil the mobile experience.
Optimize keywords
Keyword optimization can be a part of a greater SEO strategy for your digital storefront that helps enhance its online presence. Using the right keywords for relevant products makes it easy for potential customers to find the product they want, ultimately inching towards conversion.
Once you follow the keywords optimization strategy, the next step is to enhance your digital storefront’s content and meta descriptions. For this, you may consider working with digital marketing experts who leverage WordPress editorial collaboration tools for agencies and streamline content creation.
Different team members can contribute simultaneously to provide your storefront with consistent product descriptions, meta descriptions, and more. This makes it easier for teams to work together and maintain a uniform tone and style throughout the site.
Here are a few of the to-do’s to consider.
Keyword research: Leverage tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Ubersuggest to identify keywords relevant to the products listed on your digital storefront. Ideally, you’d search for “long-tail” keywords with more specific search intent, which are less competitive and can drive highly targeted traffic.
Product titles: Include keywords in your product title and ensure they are clear, concise, and contain the main keyword for the product.
Product descriptions: Integrate keywords naturally for the product descriptions while ensuring they remain user-friendly and SEO-optimized.
Meta tags: This includes the meta title and meta description. They should be relevant, compelling, and keyword-optimized.
- Meta title: A concise title that describes the page. It should be under 60 characters.
- Meta description: A summary of the page’s content. It should be under 160 characters and should entice users to click.
High-quality image
The digital storefront having high-quality images helps users see product details better, which can build trust and set expectations. Such images can provide a virtual touch-and-feel experience that can fill the void of physical touch since they can’t physically touch or try the product.
You can provide a high-quality image by following some of the actions below.
Opt for professional photography: Spare some budget to invest in professional product photography. Ensure good lighting and background that adds a significant difference.
Shoot from multiple angles: Show the product from various angles. For clothing, this could be front, back, and side views.
Add zoom functionality: Provide the zoom-in/zoom-out functionality that helps users see the finer details of the product.
Consistent presentation: Ensure all product images have a consistent style, background, and size for a unified look.
Aim for fast loading times
Lastly, consider the site speed aspect when starting a digital storefront since it can affect the user experience, influencing conversion rates. Slow-loading site frustrates users, leading them to leave without purchasing.
Also, site speed is one of the major factors that Google considers for SEO ranking faster, as websites tend to rank higher in search results, leading to more organic traffic. As for the conversion, research shows that even a one-second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions.
Here are some of the ways you can offer quicker page load times:
Image optimization:
- Tools like TinyPNG or Compressor.io can help compress images without losing quality.
- Use responsive images so mobile users don’t need to download desktop-sized images that can fasten their product navigation.
- Leverage lazy loading, wherein images can load only when they are about to become visible to the user.
Reduce server response time:
- A high-quality host can offer a virtual private server (VPS). Alternatively, a dedicated hosting if you’re on shared hosting.
- Consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Cloudflare or Akamai since it helps deliver your content from the server closest to the user to reduce load times.
Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML:
- Use tools like UglifyJS for JavaScript and CSSNano for CSS to compress your code size.
Leverage browser caching
- Set the expiry date or maximum age in the HTTP headers by instructing browsers to use previously downloaded resources from the local disk rather than fetching them over the network. This will increase the site speed, providing a smooth shopping experience to users.
Over to you
Creating a high-converting digital storefront requires careful consideration, continuous iteration, and a keen understanding of your audience’s needs. We have covered what should be the bare basics of creating a digital storefront with a focus on better user experience. But you’ll need to discover plenty of other factors and try to maximize digital storefront conversions.